By Liz Shepherd
InkFreeNews

Brendan Donald Chivington

WARSAW — A Fort Wayne man will serve one year in jail after printing off photographs of child pornography at Walmart.

Brendan Donald Chivington, 27, 1640 Neuhaus Drive, Fort Wayne, was charged with possession of child pornography, a level 6 felony. A child exploitation charge was dismissed as part of a plea agreement.

Chivington was sentenced in Kosciusko Superior Court 1 on Thursday, June 11.

On Sept. 5, 2019, a Warsaw Police officer responded to a report of child pornography at Walmart. A Walmart employee told the officer that sometime on Aug. 28, 2019, a man had printed off 110 photographs that included child pornography. Employees were reviewing the store’s photography system on Sept. 4, 2019, when they noticed child pornography was printed off. Walmart employees provided surveillance video of the man who printed the photographs to the officer.

According to court documents, four of the images depicted nude girls that appeared to be between 10 to 13 years old. Several of the images also showed girls at a beach exposing their chests and boys in provocative positions. The officer posted a picture of the man who printed the pictures on crimenet.com and was informed by Whitley County probation that the man might be Chivington. The officer obtained pictures of Chivington from the Indiana Bureau of Motor Vehicles and compared them to Walmart’s surveillance video. He positively identified Chivington as the person who had printed the child pornography.

“It’s important for the state to seriously address the issue of child pornography,” said Deputy Prosecuting Attorney Brad Voelz. “It’s become a much greater problem today because of the Internet.”

Voelz said none of the children in the photographs were people Chivington knew, but just images discovered on the Internet.

“He didn’t take these picture himself, he just downloaded them,” said Defense Attorney Austin Rovenstine. “His actions were wrong, stupid and embarrassing. He’s remorseful and will be spending the next 10 years on the sex registry, thinking about this.”

During court proceedings, Chivington apologized for the “embarrassing problem that I created.”

“I have yet to see evidence that you are remorseful,” said Judge David Cates. “There’s zero evidence of that. There’s impact on you? No. There’s an impact on these kids.”

Cates sentenced Chivington to 2 1/2 years in the Kosciusko County Jail, with 1 1/2 years of the sentence suspended on formal probation.